Thermal Quench in HTS Double Pancake Race Track Coil

In large scale applications, such as SMES, motors and generators, High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets are constructed with many stacks of the double-pancake coils connected in series. In spite of its higher thermal stability, HTS magnet can experience a severe quench, which can resulted from a very small portion. From HTS magnet design point of view, it is very important to predict the possibility of occurrence quench in the designed magnet to provide a suitable quench protection device. In this paper a highly instrumented HTS race track double-pancake coil was prepared to examine the quench development characteristics. It is wound using the Bi-2223 tape. Many voltage taps, cryogenic thermocouples and heater were installed in the winding. Conduction cooling method is adapted for the convenience of temperature. Quench development in the coil was measured under different operating current. The experimental details and results are presented in this paper.